Are construction permits a matter of public record for a case like this. IOW, could any person walk into the building permit dept. and be able to see that they had received the permit to begin construction of a new landing pad?

Also, what happened to the sea turtles nesting period? This forum was convinced a few month ago that at the current time, no construction would be possible because of the nesting turtles. What happened?

Also, what happened to the sea turtles nesting period? This forum was convinced a few month ago that at the current time, no construction would be possible because of the nesting turtles. What happened?

I think turtles are in Texas. In Florida the restriction was around bird nesting season in the surrounding scrub. Either the work started before nesting season, or the season ended I guess.

Also, what happened to the sea turtles nesting period? This forum was convinced a few month ago that at the current time, no construction would be possible because of the nesting turtles. What happened?

In Texas the beaches are patrolled and the public calls in nesting turtles, with the eggs being recovered as soon as they're laid, and the young ones released in a safe spot. They did that before the spaceport.

I was thinking the other day, perhaps it makes sense now to remove some engines (3-4) from the center core?

Falcon Heavy already has a crazy T/W and with a rumored 10% thrust increase with B5 upgrades, it will be even more crazy. It already has a >1 T/W with just the outer cores firing...

Removing 3-4 engines would allow:

-Deeper throttling of the center core after liftoff, transferring more of the lower altitude impulse outer stages, allowing them to stage earlier, also reducing the RTLS fuel requirement-Leaving more fuel for the center core after separation, both for more impulse, and more fuel for a boostback burn -Reduce center core landing fuel requirement because of a non-trivial decrease (>3000kg?) in stage empty weight giving it a higher theoretical maximum staging velocity-Reduce cost of center core

I think a Falcon Heavy with 5-6 engine center core might lose a little theoretical expendable performance, but could perhaps gain a good amount of re-usable performance...

I was thinking the other day, perhaps it makes sense now to remove some engines (3-4) from the center core?

Falcon Heavy already has a crazy T/W and with a rumored 10% thrust increase with B5 upgrades, it will be even more crazy. It already has a >1 T/W with just the outer cores firing...

Removing 3-4 engines would allow:

-Deeper throttling of the center core after liftoff, transferring more of the lower altitude impulse outer stages, allowing them to stage earlier, also reducing the RTLS fuel requirement-Leaving more fuel for the center core after separation, both for more impulse, and more fuel for a boostback burn -Reduce center core landing fuel requirement because of a non-trivial decrease (>3000kg?) in stage empty weight giving it a higher theoretical maximum staging velocity-Reduce cost of center core

I think a Falcon Heavy with 5-6 engine center core might lose a little theoretical expendable performance, but could perhaps gain a good amount of re-usable performance...

I was thinking the other day, perhaps it makes sense now to remove some engines (3-4) from the center core?

Falcon Heavy already has a crazy T/W and with a rumored 10% thrust increase with B5 upgrades, it will be even more crazy. It already has a >1 T/W with just the outer cores firing...

Removing 3-4 engines would allow:

-Deeper throttling of the center core after liftoff, transferring more of the lower altitude impulse outer stages, allowing them to stage earlier, also reducing the RTLS fuel requirement-Leaving more fuel for the center core after separation, both for more impulse, and more fuel for a boostback burn -Reduce center core landing fuel requirement because of a non-trivial decrease (>3000kg?) in stage empty weight giving it a higher theoretical maximum staging velocity-Reduce cost of center core

I think a Falcon Heavy with 5-6 engine center core might lose a little theoretical expendable performance, but could perhaps gain a good amount of re-usable performance...

Falcon Heavy already has a crazy T/W and with a rumored 10% thrust increase with B5 upgrades, it will be even more crazy. It already has a >1 T/W with just the outer cores firing...

Does FH really have thrust/weight >1 without the center core firing? If so, given that SpaceX must be getting pretty comfortable with in-flight engine restarts after all those landings, is it possible we could see FH launch with some/all of the center core engines unstarted, and air-light them? What could that do to performance?

Given that the entire center core is a different design to the standard F9, presumably they could fit all 9 engines with re/air start kits if it was useful. Part of the rationale for beefing up the center core so much structurally might actually be so that they can launch with some of the center core engines not running. Think of it as an extreme form of throttling down the center core so that there is more propellant left in it at booster sep. Of course, it probably makes the center core recovery harder.

Would the real rocket scientists (engineers) please now step in with facts (EDIT: This is said in reference to my wild speculations, not docmordrid's perfectly reasonable comments about the current air-start-ability of the F9 engine set. I re-read it and wanted to make sure it was clear that it's not aimed at anyone but myself)

Falcon Heavy already has a crazy T/W and with a rumored 10% thrust increase with B5 upgrades, it will be even more crazy. It already has a >1 T/W with just the outer cores firing...

Does FH really have thrust/weight >1 without the center core firing? If so, given that SpaceX must be getting pretty comfortable with in-flight engine restarts after all those landings, is it possible we could see FH launch with some/all of the center core engines unstarted, and air-light them? What could that do to performance?

Given that the entire center core is a different design to the standard F9, presumably they could fit all 9 engines with re/air start kits if it was useful. Part of the rationale for beefing up the center core so much structurally might actually be so that they can launch with some of the center core engines not running. Think of it as an extreme form of throttling down the center core so that there is more propellant left in it at booster sep. Of course, it probably makes the center core recovery harder.

Would the real rocket scientists (engineers) please now step in with facts (EDIT: This is said in reference to my wild speculations, not docmordrid's perfectly reasonable comments about the current air-start-ability of the F9 engine set. I re-read it and wanted to make sure it was clear that it's not aimed at anyone but myself)

There's already an entire thread to discuss this idea, no need to bring it up in here again.

I was thinking the other day, perhaps it makes sense now to remove some engines (3-4) from the center core?

Falcon Heavy already has a crazy T/W and with a rumored 10% thrust increase with B5 upgrades, it will be even more crazy. It already has a >1 T/W with just the outer cores firing...

Removing 3-4 engines would allow:

-Deeper throttling of the center core after liftoff, transferring more of the lower altitude impulse outer stages, allowing them to stage earlier, also reducing the RTLS fuel requirement-Leaving more fuel for the center core after separation, both for more impulse, and more fuel for a boostback burn -Reduce center core landing fuel requirement because of a non-trivial decrease (>3000kg?) in stage empty weight giving it a higher theoretical maximum staging velocity-Reduce cost of center core

I think a Falcon Heavy with 5-6 engine center core might lose a little theoretical expendable performance, but could perhaps gain a good amount of re-usable performance...

I was thinking the other day, perhaps it makes sense now to remove some engines (3-4) from the center core?

Falcon Heavy already has a crazy T/W and with a rumored 10% thrust increase with B5 upgrades, it will be even more crazy. It already has a >1 T/W with just the outer cores firing...

It's not crazy.

At liftoff T/W of 1.5 means that only 66% of all thrust is lost to gravity losses and 33% is doing reasonable work at liftoff moment, not 80% wasted and 20% work like traditional liquid-fueled rockets. Still huge gravity losses, better T/W still helps considerably.

It's the other way around, previously rockets have had really lousy T/W's because the engines have been the most expensive part of the rocket.

Quote

Removing 3-4 engines would allow:

-Deeper throttling of the center core after liftoff, transferring more of the lower altitude impulse outer stages, allowing them to stage earlier, also reducing the RTLS fuel requirement

for outer stages, but increasing it for core.

Quote

-Leaving more fuel for the center core after separation, both for more impulse, and more fuel for a boostback burn

Making center core fly further away until it has expendedn it's fuel and reacher the staging altitude, INCREASING fuel needed for boostback burn.

Should not be that much, only by something like 2 tonnes. Merlin 1D is less than 500 kg's. (and no, making the octaweb much different is not an option because that would make manufacturing much more expensive)

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-Reduce cost of center core

I think a Falcon Heavy with 5-6 engine center core might lose a little theoretical expendable performance, but could perhaps gain a good amount of re-usable performance...

RTLS performance would probably suffer, as the center core would fly much further away on distance before reaching staging velocity, so it would have to fly back much longer distance.

The savings for the boosters, they are not flying very far anyway, so their RTLS is cheap anyway.

At liftoff T/W of 1.5 means that only 66% of all thrust is lost to gravity losses and 33% is doing reasonable work at liftoff moment, not 80% wasted and 20% work like traditional liquid-fueled rockets. Still huge gravity losses, better T/W still helps considerably.

It's the other way around, previously rockets have had really lousy T/W's because the engines have been the most expensive part of the rocket.

For a given amount of thrust on a long-burning stage, payload to orbit is maximized by having nearly the maximum amount of fuel which gives a low TWR. Fuel only becomes a liability when the tankage to hold it slows the rocket more at the end of flight than the fuel accelerates it at the beginning. For a weight-optimized liquid rocket like Saturn V that happens around TWR of 1.1 or so.

At liftoff T/W of 1.5 means that only 66% of all thrust is lost to gravity losses and 33% is doing reasonable work at liftoff moment, not 80% wasted and 20% work like traditional liquid-fueled rockets. Still huge gravity losses, better T/W still helps considerably.

It's the other way around, previously rockets have had really lousy T/W's because the engines have been the most expensive part of the rocket.

For a given amount of thrust on a long-burning stage, payload to orbit is maximized by having nearly the maximum amount of fuel which gives a low TWR. Fuel only becomes a liability when the tankage to hold it slows the rocket more at the end of flight than the fuel accelerates it at the beginning. For a weight-optimized liquid rocket like Saturn V that happens around TWR of 1.1 or so.

Yes, but here we were NOT talking about GIVEN AMOUNT OF THRUST.

For for given fixed amount of fuel, the payload to orbit is maximized by having maximum thrust that the structure can stand, to minimize gravity losses.